cognitorex

McCain is an aging man from a war making military family. In service to a dumb war in Asia he was incarcerated and tortured. His DNA is rigid. "We should have stayed the course in Vietnam" is his dumb guns first, intelligent diplomacy second (or never) rigid mental status in foreign policy.
This fact, that his genetic military being and his 'tortured' view of what the military and diplomatic lessons of Vietnam are should disqualify McCain from America's commander in chief position.
McCain's views on Vietnam are antiquarian and dumb; tactically, politically and in relation to sound foreign policy. Even in hindsight he is rigid and wrong. He was wrong on Iraq. He remains so and is quite suspect as a leader who does not exhibit understanding that the big picture is so much more than setting off to battle because we can.

Labels: dumb, Iraq, McCain, rigid, torture, Vietnam

June 29, 2007

Iraq, Stay or Leave?
If the Iraqi's stopped all fighting, formed an exemplary democratic national government and bid all American troops to leave Iraq this would be a great victory to 'progressives' and liberals. They would offer money and services to restore Iraq to health while all the while grinning madly that peace and prosperity had been the result of America's intervention in Iraq.
Meanwhile Bush, Cheney, the neocons and their oil company allies would have a fit. As I have previously written, I have seen Dick Cheney smile that Al Qaida is now in Iraq. It suits his interests to a tee. Instability in the Midddle East is a power goal and an economic goal for those in office today. A rush to bomb Iran before leaving office is cogent policy and tactically urgent for this group.
The Democrats should take their case directly to the American voters with a bi-partisan touring panel. The message would be that the Iraqi's are not our enemy. The message should include the Iraq Parliment's agreement and blessing that withdrawal is the mutually sanest course to reduce violence.
Retired Generals who know full well that there is nothing to win in Iraq should join the touring panel to explain to the voters that a policy of leaving is more likely to be a policy of winning than what is constituted by a policy of staying.
Both serving and retired Generals know that there is nothing to "win" in Iraq except for our departure sooner or later. The military brass know that attacking Iran will cripple the military and to some degree leave America defenseless. It's time that the armed forces stop serving as mercenaries for a Cheney led economic policy which actively promotes Mid East instability as its corner stone.
Leaving Iraq is the natural and ultimate goal.
Our staying provides political ammo for the Al Qaida misfits we led into the country. Our leaving cripples these thugs' political message and motivation.
Eighty plus per cent of the Iraqis want the U.S. to leave.
And we stay why?
Cheney and his cohorts lie when they say we stay to win. They lie when they say the Jihadis will any more follow us home than they attempt to do so at present. They lie that our nationalism should want us to stay when leaving is the only defensible long term plan. They entice and invoke a following by propaganda calls to follow the Red, White and Blue while corruptly wishing our occupation and control to continue ad infinitum.
America's best interest are served by leaving.
Get er done, Congress.
Get er done, voters!

Labels: amorality combined with hubris equals Bush country, bush cheney, depraved indifference, Iraq, MCain, withdrawal is not surrender

America's young men and women will now be marching South to the oil important Basra area.
The purpose of the next 200 deaths in this region will be to promote voter suppression against MqSadr's political party.
Maliki and the central gov't are being paid well to follow US policy for gaining control of the oil resources. Sadr represents the nationalist interest for Iraq and our boys and girls must now squash his party. So?, says Cheney.
Sadr has been taking Ayatollah lessons and is emulating Ghandi by calling for nation wide non violent demonstrations.
He is a wily fox from a legendary martyrdom family. Stay tuned. Will Bush/Cheney (McCain?) mow down his followers? Ugh!

Labels: amorality combined with hubris equals Bush country, attacks per day on troops, Basra, bush cheney, Iraq, McCain, mercenary, Sadr, voter suppression

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Translated, what Mrs. Clinton and her campaign executive staff are now actually trying to (ill) logically conjure into a spin is:
"Obama's overall campaign is so superior to ours in terms of attracting adherents, attracting donations, attracting and organizing primary state volunteers and placing advertisements that if he doesn't beat us handily everywhere we will attain a quasi pyrrhic victory."
Or to put it more crudely.
"Obama's out in front of us by every measure. If he doesn't run the board that will show that we are winning."


Then there was McCain's: "We're winning in Iraq. We're winning big time in Iraq. But not so much that we're actually going to defeat the two to three thousand foreign Jihadists and domestic thugs that call themselves Al Quaeda in Iraq and stop America's bleeding

We win,
troops stay,
spend big money,
our kids'll pay.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Mark Penn, McCain Al Quaeda, Wolfson

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The Sunni insurgents are now literally and actually in their "last throes."
But now this statement means they have won.
A knowledgeable source basically says that it is an open secret that the Sunni insurgents will kick the Shia's butt when we leave.
And, our staying will serve no useful purpose.
Let events take their course.
Tis a shame we didn't go in with 300,000 troops or not disband the Army, but "Oh well."

(Current addition. It is interesting to note that the Sunni's are more comfortable with secular life, Christian minorities, women's rights and not aligned with Iran...the "Farside" meets Bush's Iraq victory. Also there's a quote somewhere of Cheney expressing disgust or disappointment that Shia fighters as compared to the Sunnis are wusses.)

Labels: Iraq, Shia to lose, Sunni victory

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--letting the cat out of the bag--

If you listen to John Burns publicly speak, his bird's nest hairdo dominating the visual, you arrive at the conclusion that to him history's best friend, unemotional time, will say that America did what the world needed and placed it's military boots in the Middle East.
When I heard him, he disclosed in his speech that his Dad was a NATO Officer, a uniformed political operative so to speak. He humorously alluded that perhaps it wasn't best to disclose to the audience that he came from a military-solution background because it hung in the air that his "meddle-away-America" conclusions seemed to derive, slantedly, from his personal background.
He, however, may well be spot on with his political historical conclusions. "Time" will tell.
But, perhaps his bias towards the acceptability of invading the brown oil rich hordes had more to do with his admission that the Brits as a nation as well as the dons of Oxford and Cambridge, whilst Mister Burns was youthfully entering the halls of higher learning, had not yet become aware that the days of Empire were actually finished.

Notes from John Burns' speech, Williams College, MA, Sept.'07

Labels: baghdad, Days of Empire, Iraq, John Burns, New York Times

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My Mother often tells the story how, some 60 years ago, a local small town official, to explain politics to her said, "When it comes to politics, its like this. Spit in one hand and put money in the other and see which way their head starts tilting."
Think of the upturned palms in Washington. Think of the K Street money machinery. Think of the billions we hand out to dictators and despots worldwide wide who align with us or at least give good lip service.
The proper term for this form of government is a "Palm-ocracy."
The goal in Iraq was to form a 'palmocracy' with Chalabi as the bursar in chief. It's the American way. Why then does everybody from Rep. Waxman, the Nation magazine and its liberal sisterhood and the blogosphere go ape because a few billion $$ are missing in Iraq? It makes no sense to me. The $$ failure in Iraq is not that a truck load or two of $$$ are missing but that BushCo failed to to find a home for this moola which had any sustainable political or military weight to it. If it's ten billion a week to fight the war and accrue dead troops, what is the fuss that a few days cash flow went missing in a hemorrhaged buyout?
This thinking gives rise to the following timeless lessons encapsulated in 'Rules for Invading Sovereignties' from "Palmocracies, Foreign & Domestic" the remorsefully edited edition, 'Wolfowitz Cheney Press.'
Never invade a country to promote aligning interests unless you can, with certainty, determine who you can effectively bribe.
Also, never attempt to occupy a country with two Popes.

Labels: Chalabi, Cheney Press, Iraq, missing Billions, my Mother, Palmocracy, Waxman

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The story's told that once upon a time George Bush, Rummy and Darth Vader happened to visit a Mosque at evening prayers.
Rummy turns to Cheney and says, "Why does the President seem so happy?"
Cheney faintly lights up his malicious leer and says, "He thinks they're repeating ally, ..ally."

Labels: allah or ally, Bush, criminal incompetence, Iraq

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Time to put GOP money where their strategic mouth is.

A net blogger, "Larkrise" makes a key point re American continuation in Iraq....."but I suspect that the loss of any financial comfort will be the only means to effect substantive change for the better."
I agree and see a potentially win win solution.

The GOP wants to continue the Iraq war at its present level.
The GOP is the party of corporate and affluent interests.
Ergo, morally, ethically and economically sound policy dictates that a war surtax be enacted.
If 130,000 plus troops for years is valid and beneficial for America's strategic interests, it follows that today's voters and leaders, and not tomorrow's middle class or children, should step up and fund this policy.

Labels: Iraq, u.s. national interest, war surtax

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We and the Brits have left the oil rich part of Iraq and its vital international port for shipments, i.e. the most important part of Iraq, to Iranian influenced warring bands of Shiites.
Elsewhere our troops are attacked one hundred and seventy five times a day.
(177.8 attacks a day on troops Reuters 7.20.07)

What in the holy christ are we exactly doing there? Defending the contractors in non National Interest territory???

If we're staying in Iraq in such force to defend the Emerald Palace when we've already lost control over most areas of strategic interest, that's like defending your ego when you're in quicksand. Or like getting a boob job with the last of your cash when the Doc says you've got cancer.

Labels: attacks per day on troops, Iraq, u.s. national interest

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To extricate one's arm from a toilet, it's a necessity to first let go of the large shiny object you've wrapped your fist around.

I've been laughing for a day or so now.

The source of humor was the description of the Iraq situation from one of the usual 'inside' narcissistic bright minds. He said that figuring out the Iraq situation was like "playing three dimensional chess in the dark while you are being shot at."

The actuality of how to deal with and accommodate or not accommodate the various parties goals and motives is logically inordinately simple.

A. America can neither stay in Iraq nor leave Iraq and have easy, cordial, aligned interests with any eventually arising central dominant force/government.

B. If America semi 'stands down' behind a multinational force the chances for a settlement and a hopeful future for Iraq (and the region) brighten.

C. Alternatively, if America insists on a continuing presence they should henceforth implement a tri-part Iraq. Post establishment of same, the U.S. could implement massive aid to each faction and a return to the time honored foreign policy of "bribe-the-dictator."

The metaphor I prefer for the Iraqi quagmire is that America forcefully shoved its arm into a deeply murky toilet to retrieve a bright shiny object. To extricate itself it simply needs to unclasp its rigid grasp and withdrawal will easily proceed.

This simple and logical opinion arrives at the same conclusion as that of the Iraq Study Group. Their advice was:

A. Inform the Iraqis et al that the U.S. will eventually disassemble their major bases in Iraq and leave. ("Let go of the shiny object!")

B. Form a multinational force (preferably with Arab country participation) to oversee security and policy making for Iraq. ("Take your arm out of the toilet.)

Craig Johnson

Labels: Iraq, surge, tri part solution, withdrawal

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(How a Chalabi “Palm-ocracy” could never happen.)

Iraq (as with its neighbors) was ruled by brutality and armed suppression before America began its occupation.
Iraq (as with its neighbors) will be ruled by brutality and armed suppression after the U.S. leaves.
No amount of troops or time frame under a half century will alter this formula.
America seeks to align itself with this, to-be-decided, new ruling force.
That this new ruling force will be a democracy is oxymoronic.
That the new ruling force will be a democracy aligned with the interests of the U.S. is even yet more naively ridiculous.
What the Cheney/neocon aggressors wanted and could have best hoped for, no matter how incompetent in assessing the tribal/religious nature of Iraq they were, would be to establish a "palmocracy."
When Arafat died I opined that hopefully, eventually, a Sunni palmocrat of Arafat's scheming mold would appear who would collect the graft and grease together a new working government. Tribes, religions, criminal elements, power seekers, moneyed neighbors with agendas and foreign born terrorists , as a mix, simply overwhelm this possibility.
Chalabi as a symbol of what a palmocracy might be was so enticing. Oh well!
Brutality and suppression will eventually create a new Iraq. The Iraqis want America out now. This desire can only increase.
It is entirely illogical that a ruling body will appear from the ashes of Iraq that will kiss the hand of its invader.
--One last tip, if you can, by stock in Crescent Condominium Development Limited. It's listed on the Iranian Stock Exchange and is reputedly a real favorite of the Mullahs.--

Labels: Crescent Condominium Deveopment Ltd., democracy, Iraq, Iraq withdrawal, palm-ocracy

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The Sunni insurgents are a viable fighting force numbering in the tens of thousands. At no point in our lifetime will they be defeated.
Therefore political accommodations may be made to install peace in Iraq, but there is categorically no 'victory' available.
The enemy we set out to defeat, the forces of Saddam and the Baathists, are still viable and present on the battlefield. We have backed new governing forces, which already reek of Baathist misconduct and which also must accommodate the insurgents politically to survive. There is no victory ever to be had in Iraq.
That the dominant American political civilian overseers (Bush / Cheney / neocons) lack both desire for and any visible skill in negotiating makes the difficult simply impossible.
A sincere best of luck to Gen. Petraeus.

Labels: Iraq, negotiating, no victory in Iraq, Petraeus

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I've been trying to imagine the Iraq situation as a football game.
Start with Shia on one side of the ball and Sunnis on the other. The Yanks are the Officials.
Embedded in both side are criminal elements who from time to time shoot somebody in the huddle or kidnap a prominent son or daughter, demanding a first down as payment.
Also playing are a number of foreign Jihadists who plant explosives in the football just when one side appears poised to score. They, to date, have been so efficient that the goal line areas have all but disappeared.
The field is surrounded by US tanks because the stands empty in violent protest after close calls bring cries of favoritism. For cheers, “Satan’s Lackeys” and “Give us back our Oil” seem to be crowd favorites.
The Mullahs, of course, declared a fatwa regarding the use of pigskin which was particularly dicey but had the cheering side effect of seeing all participants line up on the same side for a mercurial moment.
The Mullahs also pointed out that the “Hail Mary” pass was forbidden eleven centuries prior to the invention of the game of football which speaks volumes about the locals’ concept of time.
The part of the game that is most dispiriting however are the cheerleaders. First of all there are one hundred and six different cheerleader contingents representing each of the religious, familial and tribal loyalties with feuding interests. Then there's the fact that they're covered from head to toe which gives one the sense of how oxy-islamic the whole concept of organized competition here truly is.
The fact that the stands keep disintegrating, which requires additional kickbacks to Halliburton and KBR, who somehow have all the concessions, doesn’t help in the slightest.
Well, to quote Rummy, “it's complicated.”
(add your dream team comments here)

Labels: Civil War, Creative Writing, Iraq, iraq combatants

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And there was the point in W's remarks last night to the Press where he said, "I asked the Military (Tommy Franks) if we had enough troops to do the job, including doing the job after we had defeated Saddam and the answer was yes."
His Father, the CIA, General Shinseki and Colin Powell told him the truth which he ignored or in the case of the General Shinseki, he fired as he rushed pell mell into the neocon nightmare.
Now he is reconstructing that he at least asked the right questions, that the debacle is not his fault. This is actually quite sad.
If he admits the truth that he, in conjunction with Cheney, Rumsfeld and many others, for reasons still not wholly understood, deliberately went against the advice of the majority of experts then he has to say, "I am to blame."
It is a hell of a choice.
He can admit the truth that his plan and planning was incompetent and made America less safe and less respected. He can admit the truth that he, as Commander in Chief, in the end, bears the ultimate responsibility for this horrendous misadventure.
Or he can cling to a concocted excuse that once upon a time, after he had dispensed with all contrarion voices, that he did ask a General "Do we have enough troops?"
The whole world knew prior to Bush Jr.s' elections that he had in his lifetime established no record of integrity, courage and character.
We should not expect him to display such ethical fortitude now.
It's sad for George W.. It's sad for his family. And it's sad for America and all Americans.
Craig Johnson

Labels: blame, Bush, criminal incompetence, Iraq

If the Iraqi's stopped all fighting, formed an exemplary democratic national government and bid all American troops to leave Iraq this would be a great victory to 'progressives' and liberals. They would offer money and services to restore Iraq to health while all the while grinning madly that peace and prosperity had been the result of America's intervention in Iraq.
Meanwhile Bush, Cheney, the neocons and their oil company allies would have a fit. As I have previously written, I have seen Dick Cheney smile that Al Qaida is now in Iraq. It suits his interests to a tee. Instability in the Midddle East is a power goal and an economic goal for those in office today. A rush to bomb Iran before leaving office is cogent policy and tactically urgent for this group.
The Democrats should take their case directly to the American voters with a bi-partisan touring panel. The message would be that the Iraqi's are not our enemy. The message should include the Iraq Parliment's agreement and blessing that withdrawal is the mutually sanest course to reduce violence.
Retired Generals who know full well that there is nothing to win in Iraq should join the touring panel to explain to the voters that a policy of leaving is more likely to be a policy of winning than what is constituted by a policy of staying.
Both serving and retired Generals know that there is nothing to "win" in Iraq except for our departure sooner or later. The military brass know that attacking Iran will cripple the military and to some degree leave America defenseless. It's time that the armed forces stop serving as mercenaries for a Cheney led economic policy which actively promotes Mid East instability as its corner stone.
Leaving Iraq is the natural and ultimate goal.
Our staying provides political ammo for the Al Qaida misfits we led into the country. Our leaving cripples these thugs' political message and motivation.
Eighty plus per cent of the Iraqis want the U.S. to leave.
And we stay why?
Cheney and his cohorts lie when they say we stay to win. They lie when they say the Jihadis will any more follow us home than they attempt to do so at present. They lie that our nationalism should want us to stay when leaving is the only defensible long term plan. They entice and invoke a following by propaganda calls to follow the Red, White and Blue while corruptly wishing our occupation and control to continue ad infinitum.
America's best interest are served by leaving.
Get er done, Congress.
Get er done, voters!

Labels: Cheney, depraved indifference, Iraq, liar liar liar, mercenaries, middle east, withdrawal

Among all of Dick Cheney's distasteful contorted facial expressions the one that was most chilling and evil, which I wish that I had not seen, was the leer he transmitted to a GOP faithful audience when he disclosed that AQ in Iraq now numbers fifteen thousand.
His leer fully transmitted that he used the propaganda lies, that AQ was connected to Iraq, to get our guns and oil companies into Iraq. It also transmitted the, to him, deliciously evil twist that the lie has now morphed into the truth.
That AQ is now several thousand strong in Iraq is a grotesque result of the pathetically naive Neocon misadventure. It's also a plank in their arguments that we need to stay.
"The dolts, (meaning the American public and the MSM), don't have a clue as to what evil we will employ to accomplish our goals," is what the leer beams to the mightiest of the Bush base.
...as the sunlight flickered on the cross in his lapel...

---Craig Johnson---
(photo source: The Future of Television)

Labels: benumbed citizenry, Cheney, criminal incompetence, depraved indifference, faith based initiatives, impeachment, Iraq, mercenaries, neocon cabal

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It is well documented that the State Department prepared a post Iraq invasion plan that pointed out the likelihood of Sunni on Shia civil strife/slaughter. And now George Tenet painfully divulges that the CIA had a written inteligence section outlining and warning of the likely sectarian carnage. These documents were either shelved and ignored or appended to the tail end of the rigged, or politically "fixed", intelligence that made the positive case for war; the positive case that the administration demanded.
The Military general staff was forbidden on pain of being fired from preparing a full G-4 or post-invasion plan which would with 100% certainty have warned of this civil slaughter danger. Political expediency demanded that our Marines, our Army and our Navy front line warriors be sent into battle unprepared.
There is a crime in this duplicitous action to send human targets into battle but hide the known consequences to meet political ends.
This action ended up causing thousands of deaths and injuries to purposefully unprepared U.S. troops. This crime is called 'Depraved Indifference.'
All mankind now knows that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld organized a propaganda network which cherry picked intelligence to deliberately deceive the American public. (That somebody from this large organized propaganda cabal, in this case Cheney's Chief of Staff, was eventually convicted of felonious behavior should not be surprising. But those who support a Scooter pardon should be made to publicly declare that they are in essence declaring that they support, then and now, the propaganda program that lied American and Iraqi citizens into this spiraling deathtrap called Iraq. But I digress.)
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld et al not only cherry picked false fear-based intelligence that led to this conflagration they also deliberately buried the the dangers that our troops would face.They put the troops in harms way.
Plenty of documentation exists that the neocon cabal purposely chose not to 'Support our Troops' by providing the normal and required prewar planning.
Had the political agenda of the neocon cabal been made subservient to proper war planning, thousands of our troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis would not now be dead or maimed.
This depraved indifference should have its day in court.
Craig Johnson

Labels: Bush Admin, cognito_rex, craig johnson, criminal incompetence, depraved indifference, impeachment, Iraq, Libby, propaganda, support the troops, war crimes

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Iraq was governed by brutality before we arrived. It unfortunately is going to be governed by brutality when we leave,...... regardless of timing.
Staying, leaving, deadlines....chimeric illusory words, for at least a decade or three.
Ten plethora's of semantic universes will not change this sad fact.

Labels: deadlines, Iraq, Iraq/ foreign policy, withdrawal

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Seriously. Why don't the President and his veep approach the major oil companies for ten billion dollars to tide the surge over for a month or two.
That way they can veto the troop shrinkage legislation and be assured of war bucks.
Of course it would also be nice if the major oil companies paid part or all of the tab for the global security we provide for them gratis.
--Craig Johnson--

Labels: funding, Iraq, surge, timelines